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Crypto's Most-Controversial Man Explains His Cartoon Cat Fight

(Bloomberg) -- The world of cryptocurrencies is in a tizzy, and Craig Wright is at the center of it again.

The self-styled digital entrepreneur, who claims that he created Bitcoin under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, has warned several people who have criticized him that he plans to sue them for defamation and libel.

Wright sent letters last week of his intent to sue to several prominent participants, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and podcaster Peter McCormack, and said they made disparaging comments about him, including on Twitter. These letters have fanned a firestorm within the crypto community that started with Wright’s warning to “Hodlonaut,” the pseudonym for a Bitcoin developer who used the image of cat in a spacesuit as a Twitter avatar, for chastising him earlier.

On Monday, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, delisted Bitcoin SV, a digital coin Wright supports, and several other exchanges followed suit. Since then, the price of SV crashed 22 percent.

Buterin, who hasn’t replied to a request for comment, hasn’t responded to the letter. McCormack posted a comment on Twitter, saying that he has 15 lawyers willing to represent him on a pro bono basis. Hodlonaut has deleted his Twitter account.

Wright comments on the controversy via email to Bloomberg News:

1. When will you file lawsuits and against whom?

CW: I am mainly seeking people who have a perceived authority within the crypto currency industry so Vitalik & Peter McCormack. They have been sent the opening letter outlining the case already. This will give me the chance to prove my credentials in front of a judge rather than being judged by Twitter.

2. What was the breaking point for you?

CW: I have said for a long time: ‘challenge the science not personalities,’ but that has been apparently impossible so I’ve reluctantly had to take this step so that we can move on a get back to the science where I happily and openly debate ideas and concepts.

3. How much of SV do you and your faction own? How much has this cost you?

CW: This has never been about making money –- if it was I could’ve cashed out long ago and sailed into the sunset, literally.

4. The skepticism has been around for a long time. What is at the heart of the current dispute?

CW: This is a desire to silence me. They see an end to the scams, the pumps and lies in a single system and honest protocol and they are afraid. To my mind a simple denial of the basic principles of Bitcoin. Anybody who reads the White Paper can see quite clearly that BSV is the only coin that reflects that paper and has proved it’s the only coin that can scale right now.

5. What do you hope to achieve with these lawsuits?

CW: As said above –- to show a judge my credentials rather than be dragged through the Twitterverse.

6. You have been accumulating blockchain/crypto patents. Have you started licensing these out, and to whom? Have there been inquiries to buy them, and for how much and by whom? What are your plans for these patents?

CW: You will have seen many ‘names’ within the business world starting to use blockchain technology and, so, yes they are talking to us about best practices in that arena, of course.